James's Journal

"They will be sentenced today after the judge hears from Mr Rhys Pryce's fiancée about how the murder has destroyed her life"

For starters, his name is redundant.. "ap Rhys" is equivalent to Pryce. It's like calling somebody Bob Robert. But that's not the point I want to make.

The point is, justice needs to be seen to be objective. Destroying a person's life is not in itself a crime - at least not automatically.. As such, the family of a victim should be irrelevant to the criminal prosecution of the perpetrator. Is it legally worse to kill somebody with a loving family, who can plead how much their life has been ruined, than it is to kill somebody who will have no post mortem spokesperson?

I know that sentencing needs to reflect the context of the crime, but I see no reason to keep two people off the streets for different periods of time if the only differentiating circumstances of the crimes relate to the final pleas of the victim's family. That's revenge, not justice. It shouldn't affect the outcome, and therefore shouldn't happen..

I worry about this too. Bear in mind that at present if someone brutally murders me they'll be sentenced at the most to a couple of hours community service if anyone's given the chance to give the judge context...